Aunt Jula's accommodations were the only saving grace throughout this entire extended stay in the Capital. The penthouse suite above one of the richest districts in the city practically ran itself, with no input needed. Robot butlers prepared meals, readied clothing, and removed trash. There were twenty-seven settings to use to bathe, including one that would automate even the basics of a shower for you. And, blissfully, air conditioning was working with peak performance in every room. I'd gone so long without it, having to live with desert heat even indoors, that it almost made me forget why we were there for a few blissful minutes.
"Felixus swears he saw the Scarlet Scarab!"
The small screen in front of me displayed an excited Adrius, the boy's face obscured with the usual video conference lag. It amazed me, sometimes, how incongruous the technology could be here. This suite had four robotic butlers alone, but they haven't improved upon a damn Facetime call?
Despite that annoyance, the potential meanings of Adrius' words were not lost on me, and every alarm bell in my head was ringing at once.
"Why would Xandros have anything to do with Sanitas?" I asked, assuming for the moment that Felixus was not lying. "The Reach have never cared about anything that remote."
At least, it didn't feel that way. There was only so much that I could uncover about their operations, and publicly, they looked like nothing but angels in the heavens. Maybe they… reached farther than I thought.
"I don't know," Adrius mumbled, before excitedly continuing, a glitching buzz flickering across the screen, "but seriously, he saw him! Armor and everything. He had these big maroon wings, and a jetpack, and he was flying fast across the desert. So fast and so low he whipped up a trail of sand behind him! My brother swears it was the coolest thing he'd ever seen, and I believe him!"
Adrius continued for several seconds in a hurried ramble, while my own mind could not help but stir at the prospect.
The Scarlet Scarab, for better or worse, had made several public appearances at the sites of natural disasters, criminal activity, and other events. A video I'd seen countless times over the years involved him saving dozens of people from a river near the coast when their boat crashed. Another popular clip involved him intervening in an armed conflict between two of the city-states outside of the Triarchy. He took every chance he could to speak in front of a camera - I'd heard several of his speeches over the years, praising our planet's partnership with the Reach and demonstrating what that supposed partnership could do. He was impressive.
And all of it screamed suspicious to me.
"Do you know if he stopped in town?"
Adrius stopped mid-sentence and frowned. "Well, no, but-"
"If he didn't stop in town, then there's nothing to worry about."
Incorrect, but I didn't want the brothers snooping on this. They were in enough trouble as it was.
"Worry?" the boy challenged. "Why would I worry?"
That's exactly the question they wanted everyone to ask.
"It's nothing – just, a feeling. You ever wonder when something is too good to be true?"
Adrius smiled in a way that only a little kid could. "Sometimes! Father tells me that Felixus and I are too good to be true, sometimes." He paused, and for a second, I wondered if he was going to apologize for bringing up his dad in front of me. "Well, when we aren't, uh, in a bunch of trouble."
I felt for the two of them, but I couldn't dwell on it any longer. They didn't suffer any injuries for my screw up, and my own had long since turned to fading bruises running down my arm.
I ended the connection a few minutes later, to spare Adrius more than anything else. Poor kid would be on restriction for months, and I'd hate to add another month to that if his father spotted him talking to me. I was to blame for their children, apparently.
Far too intrigued now, I turned to the monitor to continue researching the Scarlet Scarab. Researching the equivalent of the Internet on Osmos V had become easier, but it was still not as intuitive as search engines on Earth. It wasn't due to the language barrier anymore, but more to just the differences in technology. There was only so much research I could do on my own on a computer available to the publ-
Oh.
Jula's equipment in her office were bound to have some interesting tools.
OSMOS V
July 7, 14:23 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
"Still no word?"
My question hung in the air as I popped my head into her office, to find her behind her desk with a tool in hand. She ignored the question for several seconds, pulled a trigger, and sprayed a small amount of congealing fluid onto her latest project. The inner-workings of a robotic arm clenched and unclenched its fist so rapidly that the extension of its fingers nearly knocked over a desk lamp.
Finally, she pulled the tool away and shook her head, looking at me. "No. Carnifex are quiet."
I sat in her hastily offered chair across from her, uncomfortable netting pinching at my back. "You're sure he's involved with that group?"
"I'm fairly certain. My brother has had a tendency to get in over his head since we were kids," she admitted, eyes still trained on the project lying on her desk. "If I were a betting woman, I'd bet you take after him in that way."
Her tone was sly yet simple, and if I were actually my age, I wouldn't have noticed what she was implying. "I'd be excited to grow up to be half as good."
"Half as good will keep you safe," she said simply, without a hint of judgment. "Half as good will keep your family from wondering if you're gonna make it home."
Mind racing through implications, I leaped at the chance to ask. "You think he's not safe."
Mother, throughout these three months, kept up the mantra that he was in hiding with the rest of Carnifex. That something had gone awry, that they were in too dangerous waters to reach out to their family members. That they would be able to come home soon, once the heat died down. I'd long suspected that there were conversations taking place about where the three of us would go to lie low, once he came home, and that Sanitas was apparently one of those places.
Or at least, it was. With the Reach's potential interest, I was not so sure.
To hear that Jula was skeptical and unemotional? That surprised me.
She seemed to work through what I'd asked after several seconds and cleared her throat, her horns catching a glint in the light. "Cassian, I am sure that he'll be fine."
"How can you be so sure?" I pressed. "It's been months with nothing. Father works with a terrorist organ-"
"He's not a terrorist."
"I don't think he is either," I clarified, "but the Triarchy and the Reach would think so. It doesn't matter what we think."
Jula settled back in her chair and stared out the tinted windows, the beautifully cramped Overcity stretching all the way to the city's outskirt walls, designed to blunt the forces of oncoming sandstorms. I wondered what she was thinking, and compared to Mother, Aunt Jula kept everything close to the vest.
"Be honest with me," I continued, "how likely is it that he's dead?"
Her eyes widened, but she sputtered.
"How likely is it that he's in some maximum security prison?"
"Well, I don't-"
"How likely is it that he's tied to a chair while the Reach probe him?"
"Enough!" She finally shouted. Her face twisted into one of barely-constrained contempt. "Cassian, you've not the foggiest idea what is going on, so stay in your place-"
"No."
She blinked.
"Respectfully, no. It's been months. I'm not going to sit here with a thumb up my ass while my Father lies dead, imprisoned, or as some alien's lab experiment. I'm not just going to go play games in the corner and pretend like my life hasn't been completely upended."
"Your life has been upended?" Jula challenged, some mixture of amusement and anger contorted across her smile. "You think this ordeal has not upended my life completely? Horatio is my brother! His wife and child are now in my care. When I tell you to 'go play games in the corner,' you should jump at the chance. Drop the ungrateful attitude and remember where you are."
I was not about to let this moment slide.
"Oh no. A terrible situation asked you to be a good sister for once, and a good aunt for the first time ever," I poked. "I'm so sorry to have been so difficult to throw off your life."
Aunt Jula sputtered. "You- you have no idea how this has-"
"This place practically runs itself! You've barely had to lift a finger to accommodate two extra people. You live alone in this big house, and I'm starting to realize just why you and Father stopped talking. You're insufferable."
I stormed out of the office. She followed after me to the door, yelling for me to turn around, but I ignored her.
When I had learned that I had an estranged aunt years ago, it was difficult to not associate that with the family I had had in my first life, from Mom's side of the family. They were incredible people, and I had several aunts. I'd lost one of them, my favorite person in the entire world, to cancer at seventeen. While I sat in my too-hot bedroom in Sanitas and dreamed of home, of my real family, I wondered if Aunt Jula was anything like Aunt Connie. She had seemed so cool – a famous inventor and businesswoman in the largest city of this new world? Surely Father was wrong to cut her out of his life.
He had been right.
OSMOS V
July 7, 21:33 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
That night, I slipped into Jula's office. Her terminal stood in its usual spot atop her desk, and accessing it had been easy enough. One of the advantages of Osmotin in this regard is that its pictographic nature as a language made it easy for me to remember passwords I'd seen before, and I'd been in her office while she worked often enough that I'd spotted it.
The Osmotin word for 'brave.' I was not sure how to take that information, but it didn't jive with anything I knew about her.
I spent hours on the terminal, hoping to find something that would make this breach of trust worth it in the end. The robotic attendants powered down for the night, only turning on if you requested something of them, and I'd not have attempted this if they could report to her that I'd been in here. As it was, I had free reign to try this, so long as she stayed asleep and I didn't trip up over any other silent alarms.
The Scarlet Scarab. The Reach Ambassador. Carnifex. Horatio. The Triumvirate. Elder Seneca, Elder Gordia, Elder Cato. The Gift. Jula. Lucrecia. Cassian. Canine alien sightings. Feline alien sightings. Sanitas. The Capital.
I left no stone unturned, and it was surprising just how much more information this terminal could access. Jula's connections likely included some on the upper echelons of society, and I frankly wondered if she had some kind of security clearance – or the Osmosian equivalent of the idea. There were tons of sites with articles that involved countless subjects, far more than the simplistic wiki-crawls I'd been able to do before, and some of it seemed sensitive to me.
Several pieces of information stood out to me as potentially concerning, but it was difficult to tell which were real areas of concern and which were the equivalent of a UFO sighting report in a tabloid.
A man claimed a freak vine moved of its own accord and knocked down a supporting wall for his home, and then ran away before it could be analyzed. Suffice it to say that Osmos V had no such flora.
Xandros supposedly was on a diplomatic trip to one of the city-states far to the south, beyond the boundaries of the Triarchy. He could have easily passed Sanitas on the way, but there were other routes he could have taken, if I understood the map correctly. From what Adrius said, the armored man was flying fast, and he really could have just been in the area. I can't help but feel that nothing is that simple.
An anonymous poster supposedly from Carnifex claimed that they were going to assassinate Elder Gordia and even posted dates and specific plans. That date had long passed, and the woman was still alive and in charge. If this one were true, I feared that Father would be unreachable after an assassination attempt failed.
But the most concerning – because it seemed more probable - were a recent rash of disappearances across the Triarchy. Dozens of people – men, women, elderly, young – were missing without a trace, all within the last two years. There were hints that there were investigators looking into the pattern, and conflicting reports from different organizations across the country and beyond were looking into the source.
I was knee-deep in an article about a Carnifex-supported violent protest a few years ago, connected maybe to the missing people, when someone grabbed my arm and spun me around.
"What are you doing?" Mother hissed, her face half-shadowed from the light of the terminal and the darkened chamber.
"I was- I am trying to see what I can learn!"
"Son, this is ridiculous. Let's go-"
"Please, Mother! Aunt Jula's terminal has so much more information!"
"I'm sure that it does, but this is not your-"
I finally pull my hand away from her grasp. "If one more person tells me to stop trying to help save my own Father, I'll… I'll run to the officials and fucking ask them directly."
That was not much of a threat, because Mother had already tried that and learned next to nothing.
Steaming with anger, I continued. "You're just like her. You don't want me doing anything. You aren't even doing anythin-"
Her hand grasped my shoulder so quickly that it cut off my train of thought, her grip painful. "Cassian, you don't have any…"
Her voice broke, and the next thing I knew, she hugged me. Tears rolled down the back of my neck, and I accepted the slight pain of her tight embrace. I leaned into it, grateful for the contact, and rubbed her back slightly. The tension in her muscles was clear as day, and I… I wasn't helping.
I was merely adding to the stress of an already horrific situation.
God damn it.
"I'm sorry."
She didn't let go and continued to sob. "Don't be sorry. I am sorry."
Mother turned to the computer terminal and hesitated, almost amused. "What do you think you've found?"
I smiled, too eager to show her to care about her almost dismissive expression. I'd prove to her this was real, or that this had potential.
OSMOS V
July 7, 23:07 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
The man stepped from a sand-blasted alley and into the busy streets of one of the largest cities he'd ever seen. Carefully, he adjusted the jacket he'd just stolen, stretching its slightly ill fit. It wasn't the most difficult disguise he'd ever had to wear, but he was grateful that he hadn't had to wear a synthetic skin or elaborate contacts or a full-body cast.
After all, most of the people throughout the tightly-packed streets were roughly the same height, the same build, and had many of the same physical features as he did naturally. Compared to his last assignment, it was far easier physically to ingratiate himself into the population of Osmos V, and he suspected that was largely the reason he'd been called for this mission.
The parameters were clear enough to understand. He had a very task-oriented mind. It was often best, for him, to take every infiltration mission one step at a time. Considering the implications of what might be happening on this planet behind the scenes, if he tried to do too much too quickly, he could easily fail to gain useful intelligence before he was uncovered.
So, he started small: investigate the disappearances of several individuals across Osmos V's primary world power and uncover what, if any, connections they may have to the Reach. Depending on how things unravel, the situation could get incredibly messy incredibly quickly, on a political scale that far outweighs the planetary politics of Osmos V.
He settled into an Overcity bar, ordering a drink that would overpower a simple human body. He sipped it to keep up appearances until his potential mark arrived, and even the taste of it was overbearing. He knew how to hide his reactions, maintaining neutrality, while he studied the patrons of the bar.
The translator implant behind his ear worked overtime to filter even the small background chatter into English. He would have to be careful whom he talked to – he'd spent weeks aboard the ship studying Osmotin as a language to become fluent but the translator would carry much of the weight during his time here.
These were the usual conversations that people have, even back on Earth. The names were different, the customs were different, but people are people. Men and women discussed their relationships, they discussed their careers, and they discussed current events. Those conversations were always the most enlightening for a man in his profession, so he turned his focus on them.
"Why here?"
He glanced upward to the bartender, a pretty redhead with horns jutting from her head, indicating that she was likely four times as old as he was, but looked no older than twenty-five. She smirked as they made eye contact.
"Just missing my son. Decided to drink away my sorrows before I meet a friend."
The woman eyed him, ignoring someone down at the other end of the counter asking for a drink. Her coworker shot her an annoyed look and then went to get the order.
"Why do you miss him? Handsome thing like you separated from his unlucky mother?"
The man played along and showed some of his genuine remorse. "A little of that. Job forced me to travel abroad, and I might be away from him for a long time."
The bartender reached over to try to place a comforting hand on his. He pulled his hand away, knowing humans were noticeably warmer than Osmosians.
"You have my sympathies. Anything I can do to make you feel better tonight? A stronger drink perhaps?"
If he tried any stronger, even the small sips he had made might strip his stomach lining.
"No, thank you."
The bartender shrugged. "Suit yourself. If you need anything else, just ask for Lushila. Your name?"
"Just Gabriel."
The bartender returned to her post, and Gabriel returned to his own. A tap of his earlobe ensured the translator was recording everything for study later, and he continued to wait for the real purpose of his stay to arrive.
A near half-hour passed, putting the time well after midnight, before he finally spotted his target. An elderly Osmosian entered the establishment alone, and from the shape and length of the horns, Gabriel knew he was much older than even the bartender. The man's appearance matched what information he had, and Gabriel stood from the chair to greet him.
The man's exhaustion was clear on his face and in his gait, and he looked even older than he really was. In his arms were a stack of familiar pamphlets.
"Maximus," the human offered as he approached, surprising the elderly Osmosian. "I apologize for interrupting your evening, but I am certain that if you listen to what I have to say, you will be grateful you took the time to speak to me."
"Who are you?"
Gabriel introduced himself by name and then he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled a pamphlet he'd taken from the street earlier that day, one with information about a missing man. "Someone with information about the whereabouts of your son, Horatio."
The pamphlets under the elderly man's arms scattered across the ground.140